In sportfishing operations, a conventional procedure is to troll fishing lines astern of the fishing boat from outrigger devices that hold the lines sufficiently spaced apart to prevent the lines from becoming entangled with one another while allowing the vessel to cover larger areas of water.
Outriggers in the trolling position allow more than one bait to be effectively attached to each outrigger without the danger of entanglement. To position multiple lines along the beam of an outrigger, the fishing pole line is secured to release clips attached to a positioning line that is drawn along the length of the outrigger pole to a desired location. When a fish strikes the bait, the release clip disengages the fishing line from the positioning line, and the fisherman is free to reel in the fish without interference. Proper placement of the outrigger pole and fishing line increases the chances of fish being drawn to the bait.
On large offshore sportfishing boats, the outrigger devices are typically of the tubular, cable trussed, mast type having the inboard end pivotally secured to a portion of the boat. A plurality of boom elements enable the outrigger to be held either in a stowage or trolling position while permitting movement between the two positions.
Typically, each outrigger device includes an elongated tubular structure, e.g. 10-40 feet long, having its inboard end fastened to the boat in a manner that allows the outboard or distal end to be moved from a stowage position to a fishing position. In order to minimize weight, outrigger poles are generally constructed from aluminum tubing. On smaller boats, an outrigger system can be a simple pole that carries the rigging halyard. However, on larger boats the outriggers can be as long as 40 feet; a simple aluminum pole of this length would bend and/or buckle under the loads imposed by wave action. In order to minimize weight and maintain rigidity of the long poles, the prior art typically utilizes a relatively small diameter center tube with a plurality of longitudinal cable trusses to increase its structural rigidity.
The prior art is functional, but it has a number of drawbacks. Cable trusses are generally unappealing in appearance, create a significant amount of wind noise even at relatively low speeds and require a significant amount of space due to the spreader arms that carry the truss cable guides. Additionally, the cable trusses tend to corrode due to the harsh atmosphere in which they are used and require a considerable amount of maintenance. The different expansion rates of the cable and the pole can create even more problems. A relatively small change in temperature can cause the cable trusses to become loose and allow the pole to bend or become extremely tight and overload the cables or the cable guides.
Accordingly, what is lacking in the art is an aesthetically appealing outrigger that provides controllable thickness and flex characteristics for outrigger sportfishing without the high maintenance, space requirements, and wind noise of the prior art.